The Canaanite foreigners remaining after the Israelite conquest became subject to slavish forced labor (Josh. 16:10; 17:13; Judg. 1:21, 27-35), but because the Israelites did not drive them from the land and eradicate their worship as Jehovah had commanded (Judg. 2:1, 2), the Canaanites in general continued to practice their idolatrous and degraded religions, with the result that the Israelites were continually being led into false worship (Ps. 106:34-39), particularly the worship of the Baals and the Ashtoreth images. (Judg. 2:11-13) These Canaanitish foreigners continued to be found in Israel down through David’s time to the reign of Solomon, when they were still being put to forced labor on the temple and Solomon’s other building projects.—1 Ki. 9:20, 21; see FORCED LABOR.

Contrary to divine command, Solomon took many foreign wives, who gradually turned his heart away from the pure worship of Jehovah to that of foreign gods. (1 Ki. 11:1-8) This intrusion of false religion at the highest governmental level had fatal repercussions, leading to the splitting of the nation and eventual exile in Babylon as successive kings, both of Judah and Israel, led the people into false worship. This culminated in the fulfillment on the nation of the maledictions that were foretold as inescapable sanctions for violations of the Law.—1 Ki. 11:9-11; 2 Ki. 15:27, 28; 17:1, 2; 23:36, 37; 24:18, 19; Deut. 28:15-68.

Upon restoration of a faithful remnant of Israelites from the captivity in Babylon, many of the Israelites took foreign wives for themselves. (Ezra 9:1, 2; Neh. 13:23-25) This wrong course necessitated vigorous purges of foreign wives and their sons under the direction of Ezra and Nehemiah. (Ezra 10:2-4, 10-19, 44; Neh. 13:1-3, 27-30) Action was also taken against other foreigners guilty of improprieties.—Neh. 13:7, 8, 16-21.

In the intervening centuries from the liberation from Babylon to the time Jesus Christ was on earth, the Israelites experienced many outrages at the hands of foreigners. The conquering Babylonians had dealt very harshly at the time of the subjugation of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem. (Lam. 2:5-12, 19-22) After the liberation, the Jews were in constant conflict with the foreigners around them in the Promised Land, especially being harassed by the Greek rulers of Syria. In the Jews’ efforts to maintain their restored worship, they had to resist the fierce persecutions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes as he attempted to Hellenize the Jews. In the postexilic centuries the Israelites were in a constant struggle for independence, which created a zeal for Judaism and, on the part of some, an intensely nationalistic spirit. These factors, coupled with the fear of mongrelizing their race through intermarriage with foreigners, likely contributed to the departure from the liberal spirit clearly evident in the Hebrew Scriptures respecting foreigners.—Compare 1 Kings 8:41-43; 2 Chronicles 6:32, 33; Isaiah 56:6, 7.

DURING THE FIRST CENTURY C.E.

Particularly through the influence of their religious leaders, there developed the aloofness and rigid exclusiveness that existed among the Jews in the first century C.E. Evidence of this attitude is seen in the disdain they showed for the Samaritans, a people of mixed descent from Israelites and foreigners. As a rule the Jews ‘had no dealings with the Samaritans,’ not even wanting to ask for so much as a drink of water from them. (John 4:9) Jesus, however, made clear the wrongness of such an extreme view.—Luke 10:29-37.

The establishment of the new covenant on the basis of Christ’s ransom sacrifice brought to an end the legal separation between Jew and Gentile. (Eph. 2:11-16) Yet, even after Pentecost of 33 C.E., the early disciples were slow to grasp this fact. The common or standard Jewish view was expressed by Peter to the gentile Cornelius: “You well know how unlawful it is for a Jew to join himself to or approach a man of another race.” (Acts 10:28) John 18:28 shows that entry into a Gentile home was viewed by the Jews as bringing ceremonial defilement. While the Law given through Moses made no specific injunction against such minor association, this view was common among the Jews and particularly among their religious leaders. It took some time for the early Jewish Christians to free themselves of the restrictions imposed by prevailing attitudes and recognize the fact emphasized by the apostle Paul that, for those having the ‘new Christian personality,’ there is “neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, foreigner, Scythian, slave, freeman, but Christ is all things and in all.”—Gal. 2:11-14; Col. 3:10, 11.

FOREKNOWLEDGE, FOREORDINATION

Foreknowledge means knowledge of a thing before it happens or exists; also called prescience. In the Bible it relates primarily, though not exclusively, to Jehovah God the Creator and his purposes. Foreordination means the ordaining, decreeing or determining of something beforehand; or the quality or state of being foreordained.

ORIGINAL-LANGUAGE WORDS

The words generally translated as “foreknow,” “foreknowledge” and “foreordain” are found in the Christian Greek Scriptures, although the same basic ideas are expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures.

“Foreknowledge” translates the Greek proʹgno·sis (from pro, before, and gnoʹsis, knowledge). The corresponding verb pro·gi·noʹsko is used in two cases with regard to humans: in Paul’s statement that certain Jews were “previously acquainted” with him (knew him beforehand), and in Peter’s reference to the “advance knowledge” had by those addressed in his second letter. (Acts 26:4, 5; 2 Pet. 3:17) In this latter case it is obvious that such foreknowledge was not infinite; that is, it did not mean that those Christians knew all the details of time, place and circumstance about the future events and conditions Peter had discussed. But they did have a general outline of what to expect, received as a result of God’s inspiration of Peter and of other contributors to the Bible.

“Foreordain” translates the Greek pro·o·riʹzo (from pro, before, and ho·riʹzo, to mark out or set the bounds). (The English word “horizon” transliterates the Greek word ho·riʹzon, meaning the “bounding” or “limiting.”) Illustrating the sense of the Greek verb ho·riʹzo is Jesus Christ’s statement that, as the “Son of man,” he was “going his way according to what [was] marked out [ho·ri·smeʹnon].” Paul said that God had “decreed [marked out, ho·riʹsas] the appointed seasons and the set limits of the dwelling of men.” (Luke 22:22; Acts 17:26) The same verb is used of human determination, as when the disciples “determined [hoʹri·san]” to send relief to their needy brothers. (Acts 11:29) However, specific references to foreordaining in the Christian Greek Scriptures are applied only to God.

UNDERSTANDING DEPENDENT ON CERTAIN FACTORS

To understand the matter of foreknowledge and foreordination as relating to God, certain factors necessarily must be recognized.

First, God’s ability to foreknow and foreordain is clearly stated in the Bible. Jehovah himself sets forth as proof of his Godship this ability to foreknow and foreordain events of salvation and deliverance, as well as acts of judgment and punishment, and then to bring such events to fulfillment. His chosen people are witnesses of these facts. (Isa. 44:6-9; 48:3-8) Such divine foreknowledge and foreordination form the basis for all true prophecy. (Isa. 42:9; Jer. 50:45; Amos 3:7, 8) God challenges the nations opposing his people to furnish proof of the godship they claim for their mighty ones and their idol-gods, calling on them to do so by foretelling similar acts of salvation or judgment and then bringing them to pass. Their impotency in this respect disproves any such claim and demonstrates their idols to be ‘mere wind and unreality.’—Isa. 41:1-10, 21-29; 43:9-15; 45:20, 21.

A second factor to be considered is the free moral agency of God’s intelligent creatures. The Scriptures show that God extends to such creatures the privilege and responsibility of free choice, of exercising free moral agency (Deut. 30:19, 20; Josh. 24:15), thereby making them accountable for their acts. (Gen. 2:16, 17; 3:11-19; Rom. 14:10-12; Heb. 4:13) They are thus not mere automatons or robots. Man could not truly have been created in “God’s image” if he were not a free moral agent. (Gen. 1:26, 27; see FREEDOM.) Logically, there should be no conflict between God’s foreknowledge (as well as his foreordaining) and the free moral agency of his intelligent creatures.

Another factor that must be considered, one sometimes overlooked, is that of God’s moral standards and qualities, including his justice, honesty and impartiality, his love, mercy and kindness, as revealed in the Bible. Any understanding of God’s use of the powers of foreknowledge and foreordination must therefore harmonize with not only some, but all these factors.

THE BASIC QUESTION

Clearly, whatever God foreknows must inevitably come to pass, so that God is able to call “things that are not as though they were.” (Rom. 4:17) The question then arises: Is his exercise of foreknowledge infinite, without limit? Does he foresee and foreknow all future actions of all his creatures, spirit and human? And does he foreordain such actions or even predestinate what shall be the final destiny of all his creatures, even doing so before they have come into existence?

Or, is God’s exercise of foreknowledge selective and discretionary, so that whatever he chooses to foresee and foreknow, he does, but what he does not choose to foresee or foreknow, he does not? And, rather than preceding their existence, does God’s determination of his creatures’ eternal destiny await his judgment of their course of life and of their proved attitude under test? The answers to these questions must necessarily come from the Scriptures themselves and the information they provide concerning God’s actions and dealings with his creatures, including what has been revealed through his Son, Christ Jesus.—1 Cor. 2:16.

Predestinarian view

The view that God’s exercise of his foreknowledge is infinite and that he does foreordain the course and destiny of all individuals is known as predestinarianism. Its advocates reason that God’s divinity and perfection require that he be omniscient (all-knowing), not only respecting the past and present, but also regarding the future. For him not to foreknow all matters in their minutest detail would evidence imperfection, according to this concept. Examples such as the case of Isaac’s twin sons, Esau and Jacob, are presented as evidence of God’s foreordaining creatures before their birth (Rom. 9:10-13); and texts such as Ephesians 1:4, 5 are cited as evidence that God foreknew and foreordained the future of all his creatures even before the start of creation.

To be correct, this view would, of course, have to harmonize with all the factors previously mentioned, including the Scriptural presentation of God’s qualities, standards and purposes, and his righteous ways in dealing with his creatures. (Rev. 15:3, 4) We may properly consider, then, the implications of such a predestinarian view.

This concept would mean that, prior to creating angels or earthling man, God exercised his powers of foreknowledge and foresaw and foreknew all that would result from such creation, including the rebellion of one of his spirit sons, the subsequent rebellion of the first human pair in Eden (Gen. 3:1-6; John 8:44), and all the bad consequences of such rebellion down to and beyond this present day. This would necessarily mean that all the wickedness that history has recorded (the crime and immorality, oppression and resultant suffering, lying and hypocrisy, false worship and idolatry) once existed, before creation’s beginning, only in the mind of God, in the form of his foreknowledge of the future in all its minutest details.

If the Creator of mankind had indeed exercised his power to foreknow all that history has seen since man’s creation, then the full weight of all the wickedness thereafter resulting was deliberately set in motion by God when he spoke the words: “Let us make man.” (Gen. 1:26) These facts bring into question the reasonableness and consistency of the predestinarian concept; particularly so, since the disciple James shows that disorder and other vile things do not originate from God’s heavenly presence but are “earthly, animal, demonic” in source.—Jas. 3:14-18.

Infinite exercise of foreknowledge not required by perfection

The argument that God’s not foreknowing all future events and circumstances in full detail would evidence imperfection on his part is, in reality, an arbitrary view of perfection. Perfection, correctly defined, does not demand such an absolute, all-embracing extension, inasmuch as the perfection of anything actually depends upon its measuring up completely to the standards of excellence set by one qualified to judge its merits. (See PERFECTION.) Ultimately, God’s own will and good pleasure are the deciding factors as to whether anything is perfect, not human opinions or concepts.—Deut. 32:4; 2 Sam. 22:31; Isa. 46:10.

To illustrate this, God’s almightiness is undeniably perfect and is infinite in capacity. (1 Chron. 29:11, 12; Job 36:22; 37:23) Yet his perfection in strength does not require him to use his power to the full extent of his omnipotence in any or in all cases. Clearly he has not done so, or, not merely would certain ancient cities and some nations have been destroyed, but the earth and all in it would have been obliterated long ago by God’s executions of judgment, accompanied by mighty expressions of disapproval and wrath, as at the Flood and on other occasions. (Gen. 6:5-8; 19:23-25, 29; compare Exodus 9:13-16; Jeremiah 30:23, 24.) God’s exercise of his might is therefore not simply an unleashing of limitless power but is constantly governed by his purpose and, where merited, tempered by his mercy.—Neh. 9:31; Ps. 78:38, 39; Jer. 30:11; Lam. 3:22; Ezek. 20:17.

Similarly, if, in certain respects, God chooses to exercise his infinite ability of foreknowledge in a selective way and to the degree that pleases him, then assuredly no human or angel can rightly say: “What are you doing?” (Job 9:12; Isa. 45:9; Dan. 4:35) It is therefore not a question of ability, what God can foresee, foreknow and foreordain, for “with God all things are possible.” (Matt. 19:26) The question is what God sees fit to foresee, foreknow and foreordain, for “everything that he delighted to do he has done.”—Ps. 115:3.

Selective exercise of foreknowledge

The alternative to predestinarianism, the selective or discretionary exercise of God’s powers of foreknowledge, would have to harmonize with God’s own righteous standards and be consistent with what he reveals of himself in his Word. In contrast with the theory of predestinarianism, a number of texts point to an examination by God of a situation then current and a decision made on the basis of such examination.

Thus, at Genesis 11:5-8 God is described as directing his attention earthward, surveying the situation at Babel, and, at that time, determining the action to be taken to break up the unrighteous project there. After wickedness developed at Sodom and Gomorrah, Jehovah advised Abraham of his decision to investigate (by means of his angels) to “see whether